This must be the most bizarrely assembled concert I’ve been
to in years, and that’s saying something. How many evenings
would open with Ligeti, followed by Beethoven, then break for
a solo piano recital of more Ligeti, and then pile on Mahler’s
enormous draft of the first movement of the Second Symphony,
followed by a Beethoven work that typically begins a
program? This was as brash a line-up as I’ve seen, and Jonathan
Nott (whom I had not heard live before) should be congratulated
for mixing it up a bit, upending the traditional expectations
to carve out something new.

The Ligeti Lontano might have been worth the entire evening.
Radical in its day, it explores color, texture and shape rather
than melody or harmony, not to mention anything remotely resembling
counterpoint. Ligeti creates shimmering sound clouds, often using
an entire division of the orchestra (i.e., winds, strings or brass)
that softly dissolve and reassemble, challenging the listener
to approach the idea of music in a completely new way. Rather
than a single part for the first violins, for example, the score
has a part for virtually each individual, whose clusters of notes
create the composer’s unearthly effects. The Bamberg orchestra’s
slightly wiry sound was well suited to these textural experiments,
and further, Nott conjured up a three-dimensional sound picture,
with beautiful gradations and shadings gently oozing into one
another, as if the sound were gently washing up on a deserted
beach, over and over. At the close, Nott stood frozen as a statue,
gracefully encouraging the hypnotic spell of the work to sink
in.

I have not yet heard Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s set of the
complete Beethoven piano concerti, a deficiency that will probably
change after this superb Fourth, which caused a friend
with me to remark, “Now I get it.” In three
months’ time, I’ve also heard performances by Radu
Lupu and Mitsuko Uchida, but as stirring as these were, Aimard
seemed in a class by himself, collaborating with Nott and the
orchestra with lithe grace that was wondrous to observe. Aimard
seems to have it all these days: masterful phrasing, well-placed
pedal work, a wide range of dynamics, and articulation that makes
the piano line appear to be dancing on top of the orchestra. The
second movement was especially fine, with the orchestra’s
stentorian queries answered by Aimard’s plaintive fingerwork.
Refined dialogue like this is exactly what a great concerto should
be.

Most programs that include Beethoven’s Leonore Overture
No. 3 place it at the beginning, but Nott had other ideas,
and somehow this concert led inexorably to a reading that was
almost more violent than the Mahler. The Bamberg ensemble plays
Beethoven with stirring passion, with a combination of steeliness
and sheer guts that might be close to what Beethoven himself might
have witnessed.

As if this hefty assortment were not enough, Nott had prepared
an encore: the very first of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, Op.
46, No. 1, titled “Furiant.” This orchestra
was founded after World War II by émigrés from Prague,
and in their delicious aperitif one could sense the Czech heritage
surging forward in every bar, right up through the electric conclusion.